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Sikh students can wear dagger in Plymouth-Canton schools, but with modifications

jamesrage

jamesrage

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So under the guise of religion a student can carry a blade to school as long as it is short and dull. For some reason I think that if a christian student claimed that the teaching of evolution offended his religious beliefs he would not get a free pass for that class.


Sikh students can wear dagger in Plymouth-Canton schools, but with modifications | Detroit Free Press | freep.com

The Plymouth-Canton school district has opted to allow Sikh students to wear a small, religious dagger to school.

The decision reverses a ban put in place in December after a fourth-grade boy at Bentley Elementary School in Canton was found with a dull 3- to 5-inch kirpan, a dagger that is a religious symbol baptized Sikh males are expected to carry. In Sikh tradition, the kirpan represents a commitment to fight evil.

The principal initially let the boy keep the kirpan, but the school board instituted a ban because of concerns from parents and conflict with prohibitions against bringing weapons to school.

On Friday, the district issued a note to parents describing conditions that would be in place to allow students to wear kirpans, beginning today:

Any kirpan worn at school should be sewn inside a sheath in such a way that the blade cannot be removed from the sheath.

The blade of the kirpan is restricted in length to no more than two and one-fourth inches. This would take the object outside the scope of the Revised School Code’s definition of a knife constituting a dangerous weapon.

The blade of the kirpan must be dull.

The kirpan should not be worn on the outside of the clothing and should not be visible in any way.

It will not be the practice of staff members to conduct random searches for the possession of kirpans. However, students who violate any of the above will be subject to discipline including a prohibition on wearing the kirpan to school in the future.
 
Political correctness runs amuck, yet again.
 
if it is sewn into the sheath and is not able to be retracted, then what damage could it do

somehow, i think the opponents would be screaming if it was decided that crosses worn on necklaces could be used as weapons and were therefor no longer going to be tolerated
 
If it can't be removed from the sheath, then it amounts to little more than a religious symbol, same as a crucifix.
 
justabubba said:
if it is sewn into the sheath and is not able to be retracted, then what damage could it do

somehow, i think the opponents would be screaming if it was decided that crosses worn on necklaces could be used as weapons and were therefor no longer going to be tolerated
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Let's sew our pistolas into their holsters. :lol:
 
I knew Sikhs. very respectful and law abiding people. far more likely a baseball player would attack someone with a bat or a field hockey player with a stick than a sikh attack someone with a knife with criminal intent
 
Dull, small knife in a sheath.

Not a big deal to me. I know dozens and dozens of kids that brought small pocket knives to school. If someone wanted to bring a weapon into school to use it for dangerous reasons they'd do it regardless of the rules allowing for it or not. There's nothing big here in my mind.
 
Zyphlin said:
Dull, small knife in a sheath.

Not a big deal to me. I know dozens and dozens of kids that brought small pocket knives to school. If someone wanted to bring a weapon into school to use it for dangerous reasons they'd do it regardless of the rules allowing for it or not. There's nothing big here in my mind.
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exactly, if the kid wanted to commit mass murder he's bring a bunch of pipe bombs or a sawn off shotgun
 
TurtleDude said:
I knew Sikhs. very respectful and law abiding people. far more likely a baseball player would attack someone with a bat or a field hockey player with a stick than a sikh attack someone with a knife with criminal intent
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If little girls' nail files weren't illegal at school, you might have an argument.

If this would have been a Christian white girl, it would have been a no-go.

But, when students get suspended for having a Swiss Army knife in his car, this is nothing more than PC run amuck.
 
Meh, doesn't seem like it's that bad. Hell when I was in high school you could bring guns onto school property. Now, of course, they didn't allow you to open carry through the hallways. But people always had guns in their cars, particularly around the start of deer season.

I think in many ways we're too namby pamby about **** these days.
 
TurtleDude said:
I knew Sikhs. very respectful and law abiding people. far more likely a baseball player would attack someone with a bat or a field hockey player with a stick than a sikh attack someone with a knife with criminal intent
Click to expand...

Maybe turtle, but we can't change the law for one group.
 
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American said:
Maybe turtle, but we can't change the law for one group.
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They didn't.

The blade of the kirpan is restricted in length to no more than two and one-fourth inches. This would take the object outside the scope of the Revised School Code’s definition of a knife constituting a dangerous weapon.
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A two inch blade isn't considered a dangerous weapon.
 
Zyphlin said:
Dull, small knife in a sheath.

Not a big deal to me. I know dozens and dozens of kids that brought small pocket knives to school. If someone wanted to bring a weapon into school to use it for dangerous reasons they'd do it regardless of the rules allowing for it or not. There's nothing big here in my mind.
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That's all irrelevant. If my son can't bring his pocketknife to school, then forget it.
 
spud_meister said:
They didn't.



A two inch blade isn't considered a dangerous weapon.
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You show up at an American public school with your 2" knife and see what happens, gringo.
 
apdst said:
If little girls' nail files weren't illegal at school, you might have an argument.

If this would have been a Christian white girl, it would have been a no-go.

But, when students get suspended for having a Swiss Army knife in his car, this is nothing more than PC run amuck.
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hey when I went to school some of us had shotguns in our cars because we belonged to a country club next to the school where there was a skeet range and i'd meet my dad during lunch and shoot a few rounds with hiim


no one ever got shot, let alone threatened with a weapon

another time an old British teacher couldn't find a pair of scissors to open a packet of exam booklets so he asked if anyone in this recently turned COED prep school for a knife. The son of a local multimillionaire whipped out a german automatic stilleto he had bought on a recent skiing trip. The Old teacher cut the package open and then expertly threw the stilleto into a near by cork board muttering that knives were worthless if not kept razor sharp (the teach had been in the British Airborne in various areas of nastiness)

nowadays the school would have been on lockdown and everyone's locker searched.
 
I think this is a reasonable compromise to accomodate an important religious belief of the students.

I just wish some sort of sanity were more commonplace in public schools policies...
 
Its amazing that allowing someone to bring a religious symbol, similar to the crucifix for christians, is "PC run amok" yet the notion of schools disallowing 2" dull blades that are never exposed somehow isn't worthy of condemnation :roll:
 
Hey Gang,

Sikhs are not at all the problem in this country. If I could I would pick up all the Sikhs in India and bring them to America. It would be a major infusion of healthy blood into a very sick body politic.
 
I carried a 3 inch pocket knife at my school. I'm blown away that this kind of thing irritates anyone. I mean how many children in the United States have been the victims of pocket knife attacks? There has to be a statistic out there. I bet they are far more likely to be molested by one of their teachers than to be attacked by a fellow peer with a pocket knife.
 
Albert Di Salvo said:
Hey Gang,

Sikhs are not at all the problem in this country. If I could I would pick up all the Sikhs in India and bring them to America. It would be a major infusion of healthy blood into a very sick body politic.
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Are you sure, they seem a little Sihk to me. Welcome to Instant Rimshot
 
spud_meister said:
If it can't be removed from the sheath, then it amounts to little more than a religious symbol, same as a crucifix.
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Would students who were not Sikh be allowed to wear these things to? If they allowed everyone to wear one these to school then sure no big deal.
 
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